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‘when we first met, he was a pistol, full of ideals and a natural leader’

‘This gal is really a pistol...She wants everything.’

‘"Megan's a pistol, a real spitfire," says Cartwright, who, besides Bart, voices five other male dudes on the decade-old "Simpsons".’

‘"He drove his clients crazy but they loved him to death," says his younger brother, Andrew. "He was a pistol."’

‘Matilda, who early on threatens to be a real pistol of a character, becomes the stereotypical, eccentric spinster auntie who teaches her charges useful life lessons in between subjecting them to her annoying habits and quirky behavior.’

‘My daughter Maria is 8 years old and she's a pistol.’

‘I knew the last surviving daughter as well and she was a pistol, married eight times, a former flapper from the Twenties.’

‘"She never backed down," Corio said. "She was a pistol."’

‘She'd scale short walls. Anything to get out of that place. Not because it was so terrible. But, because she could. She was a pistol.’

‘That 94-year-old grandmother is the subject of the article, and apparently she's a pistol.’

verb

[with object]dated

Shoot (someone) with a pistol.

‘In fact he pistolled the wounded Fraser at Culloden and the officers celebrated by splashing themselves in Highland blood.’

Origin

Mid 16th century: from obsolete French pistole, from German Pistole, from Czech pišt'ala, of which the original meaning was ‘whistle’, hence ‘a firearm’ by the resemblance in shape.